


Z Is For Zenith

by mydogwatson



Series: A Baker Street Alphabet [26]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Marriage, Memories, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Z Is For Zenith

**Author's Note:**

> As this series ends, I want to thank every one who has read, left kudos, and commented to let me know that you have been enjoying the stories. I hope that those of you who started with A and stuck with it all the way to Z will take away good memories. Thank you so much.

After loving you so much, can I  
forget you for eternity, and have  
no choice?

-Robert Lowell

1

At long last, everyone had gone away and he was blessedly left alone. While on one level, he appreciated the kindness being shown [especially because that kindness was on behalf of John’s memory, not of he himself], he was glad to see the last car disappear up the lane. By the time the cottage fell silent, Sherlock felt that he could not be polite for one more moment. It was only fortunate that after so many years he had managed to internalize his portable conscience. He could almost hear the voice.

//Shake hands, Sherlock. Say thank you. Do not mention his unfaithful wife.//

The funeral itself had been relatively small, of course. All of the people they had really known were long dead. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade. Mycroft. Molly. All gone years ago. It was rather amusing that the two men who lived most dangerously, with the least regard for being safe, were the ones who had endured the longest. He did point that out to a few people during the afternoon, but no one else seemed to see the humour.

John would have giggled.

Surprisingly, Scotland Yard had sent a representative, as had John’s publisher. Some medical association he’d maintained ties with sent a doctor. Even the Northumberland 5th Fusiliers put in a token appearance. Molly’s granddaughter and her family. Most startlingly, a very minor Royal had arrived to bring the sympathies of the King.

The rest of the mourners were locals, with whom they [mostly John, of course] had forged ties over the years. Ms. Rodgers from the hospice. The beekeeper and his wife.

Sherlock supposed it had been fine, as this sort of thing went. He’d found his mind wandering more than once, doing a little deducing of the attendees. It was all rather boring, of course, as there was no one with whom to share his brilliance. That thought made him blink his eyes a bit, but no one noticed, as usual. Everyone seemed to expect that he would say a few words., so he sighed and made his way slowly to the front of the room, standing next to the casket. He had an abrupt realization of how John must have felt all those years ago under similar circumstances and he rested a hand on the polished mahogany, silently apologising yet again.

Sherlock ran his gaze over the faces of the people waiting for him to speak. “There is really nothing to say. John died peacefully with me beside him and he never hoped for anything other than that.” He paused. “Dr. John Hamish Watson was many things to me: comfortable flatmate, courageous colleague, beloved husband. But most importantly and always, he was my great and good friend. We laughed together and cried together; we lived everyday we had together. He was the best man I ever knew.” He touched the casket one more time and then started back towards his chair. But then he paused. “I miss him very much,” he said quietly.

The burial itself, in the small local cemetery, went smoothly, and then all that remained were the social niceties. The sympathy. The assurances to everyone that he would absolutely be fine on his own. Why did they think otherwise? He had lived alone previously. The fact that it had been before many of these people were born was not really relevant. He agreed more than once that, yes, it had been a good long life. [Then why did he feel as if it had all gone by in an instant?]

But finally, finally, the last car had driven away and he was on his own.

On his own.

Except that he wasn’t alone, not really, and he had not been for a very long time. Even as lonely as he had been during his hiatus, and he had been very lonely indeed, Sherlock had constantly felt the presence of another person deep in his core. John was always with him.

He felt that same presence now.

As he did every night, Sherlock took a slow walk through the cottage, closing windows, locking the front door, switching off unnecessary lights. Securing the fortress, John always called it, smiling fondly at him.

Every room was redolent with memories.

“Do you remember, John, when I,” he began at one point.

And then he remembered.

He stopped at the window that over-looked the beehives, their unmistakable forms just visible in the pale moonlight. Sherlock rested his forehead against the cool glass.

“John,” he whispered, “I don’t know how not to talk to you.”

 

Then he straightened. “Of course you remember the day I set fire to the curtains in here. You were so angry.” He made a sound that was almost, but not quite, a laugh. “It took me at least twenty minutes to talk you into bed so that I could apologise properly.”

With a faint hint of amusement still touching his lips, Sherlock drew the blinds across the window.

A few moments later, he shuffled into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, which caused him to smile just a little. In the end, he was only an ordinary Englishman. “You would scoff at the word ordinary, though, wouldn’t you, John?” he said, adding some sugar to his drink. “You always thought I was extraordinary. From the beginning, you thought I was amazing.”

He carried the sturdy beaker out to the back garden, walking carefully. Wouldn’t really do to fall and break a hip before he’d done everything yet to be finished. The fire pit was glowing, kindly lit by one of the local boys, who had also carried out the cardboard box and set it next to the chair. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to carefully clean his glasses.

Then he just sat for a moment, sipping his tea, and staring up at the night sky. It was a cloudless night after what had been a beautiful, sunny day, which in his opinion was only right. John deserved it. He watched the stars with a faint smile. Once upon a time he had known very little about the stars and planets, but John was determined to teach him.

“Did you always know that I cared very little about the facts you were teaching me?” he asked. “But I very much enjoyed the lessons.”

After a few more minutes, he sighed and lifted the lid from the box, poking at the contents. There was no one in the world whom would care about these things, all the bits and pieces of his life with John, once he himself was gone. It would all end up in the local tip. Or, the only probable alternative, in the hands of some ghoul who would love to auction off things that had once belonged to the famous Sherlock Holmes.

No. He would not allow that to happen. It made him feel quite ill to think of strangers touching these things.

Better it all go into the flames from his own hands.

He took out a bundle of greeting cards. Decades of birthday and Valentine’s Day cards, ones he had given to John and ones John had given to him, some for no real reason at all. He was briefly tempted to go through them one by one, reading each of the handwritten messages, but then he shook his head. “No, John,” he said. “Sherlock Holmes may be many things, but a masochist is not among them.”

With no more hesitation, he tossed the whole bundle onto the fire and watched it burn. The smoke trailed upwards and his gaze followed towards the stars.

 

2

It was an unexpectedly warm spring night and the sky above the Cornish landscape was a canopy of stars. The case had been wrapped up just a little too late for them to make the last train back to London, so they were at the b&b for one more night.

After dinner at the pub, John decided that they should have a walk before going to their room. Frankly, Sherlock, had been rather looking forward to the massive featherbed and a lazy evening together. But since officially they still counted as newlyweds, he supposed it was a good thing to indulge his husband in his whims. The featherbed would still be there in an hour, after all. And he had learned the pleasures to be found in anticipation.

For some reason, before they set off, John borrowed a pair of powerful binoculars from the b&b owner. They had walked for only a few minutes, before John led the way up a small hill and, once at the top, dropped into the grass. He lay back and pointed the binoculars at the sky.

“Whatever are you looking at?” Sherlock asked. Truthfully, he was only mildly interested, as his fingertips were trailing along John’s tipped-back neck.

“Cassiopeia. Look.” He handed the binoculars to Sherlock and pointed him in the correct direction. “See?”

“Well, I see something certainly.”

After a moment, John made an adjustment to where Sherlock was looking. “That is Leo.”

Sherlock was definitely bemused by this time. “All right,” he said.

John made yet another adjustment. “Gemini.”

Sherlock was still not sure what he was looking at, but John was having a good time, and he kept touching Sherlock to get him looking in the right direction, so all was fine. “Gemini,” he repeated obediently.

“And right in the middle, Cancer.”

“Very nice,” Sherlock said.

After a moment, John settled back in the grass again. “One night while you were… gone,” he said quietly, “I went out onto the roof and looked at the stars. I pretended you were somewhere looking at them, too.”

Sherlock said nothing. There was rarely anything to say when John talked about those days. And he didn’t think that his new husband really wanted to hear about the shack in Siberia where he’d almost died.

John seemed to decide he’d learned enough for one night, so he set the binoculars aside. He beamed at Sherlock and so the detective really had no choice except to wrap both arms around John and pull him close.

Stargazing might provide only modest entertainment, but making love under the stars was really quite nice.

 

3

Sherlock ran a hand over his face. “Look what you turned me into, John. A maudlin old fool.” He returned his attention to the box. A selection of photographs from their travels. He shuffled through them quickly. John at the Eiffel Tower. John pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower. Sometimes they would ask a passing tourist to snap one of them together, like the shot of them both sitting on the Spanish Steps.

A separate pile held the pictures no one else saw when John [it was always John] proudly showed off their holiday photographs. His favorite of those was the one he’d managed to take of them both, naked, and grinning impossibly widely, crammed into the sleeping berth on the Orient Express on their honeymoon. No one else on the planet had ever seen Sherlock Holmes with that expression on his face.

All of the photographs save two went into the fire.

The fortune cookie predictions from their first night.

The eulogy John had written for him and never delivered.  
Newspaper clippings.

“Ahh, your favorite, John. Confirmed bachelor John Watson.” Sherlock chuckled.

All of that burned as well.

He hesitated briefly over a small clump of faded brown/blond hair and in the end slipped it into an envelope to save.

A battered metal tea flask did not burn, of course, but he watched it turn into a blackened, unrecognizable hunk.

He did not toss the yellowed, fragile drawing of a little boy. Instead, he slipped it into the envelope with the bit of hair. He took a pen from his pocket and printed neatly on the front of the envelope: 

TO BE BURIED WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Doing that reminded him of something he’d meant to mention earlier. He chuckled a bit. “Oh, John, did you see the expressions on their faces when they found out my violin was being buried with you?”

There had been generalised shock and horror. “But, Mr. Holmes,” one of the mourners said, “Is it right to rob the world of such a treasure?”

Sherlock had only looked at him coolly, one brow raised. “Have I ever given any indication at all that I care about the world?” He could have said more. He might have told them that he would never play the instrument again, unless he could somehow play it for John. Or that he selfishly did not want anyone else playing it. Or anyone else listening to it, either. John had taken perfect care of the Strad before and he would do so again.

It was all so foolish, he knew that very well. Foolish and sentimental. Especially for a man who once thought death meant only that you were taken into a room to be burned and that was it.

“All your fault, John,” he murmured.

He took a moment to finish the now-cold tea and looked upwards again.

 

 

4

 

On his last night in Siberia he had looked through a broken window and watched the stars, thinking of John. He was huddled in an isolated wooden shack, knowing all too well that unless the rescue team sent by Mycroft arrived very soon the pneumonia would win out and all they would carry back to London would be his body.

He’d been so close to finishing the mission, putting an end to Moriarty’s organisation, going home. But now the fever raged through his body and his lungs could scarcely function. He was dying and there would be no glory in his death. No use to it all.

During the last phone conversation, before his battery died, he’d begged Mycroft not to tell anyone the truth. Let the world think, let John think, that he had actually died on the pavement that day. It would hurt John so much to find out otherwise.

As he stared out the window, he wondered if it was the same sky John would be seeing. He didn’t know, but he hoped so.

A sudden burst of coughing consumed him as he tried to pull the pile of filthy blankets more tightly around his shivering, sweating body.

His only consolation lay in knowing that Mycroft would feel guilty when they delivered his corpse.

Sherlock didn’t think he could hang on much longer. If not for the very slim hope of seeing John again, he didn’t think he’d have bothered to try.

 

5

The box was empty now.

Of all his treasures, the only four he decided to keep were the drawing, the clump of John’s hair, and his favorite photograph from their wedding day. And, after a moment’s thought, the photograph from the Orient Express. Those things would go with him.

It had not been easy watching so much of his life go up in flames, but it was the right thing to do. He’d told John about his plan and John had approved it.

It was very late now and he was so tired. But he still took the time to look at the stars once more. He rather hated the thought of going back into their home. Inside the cottage everything would remind him that John was gone. Out here, he could almost think that the other man was curled up in their bed waiting for him.

“Oh, John,” he murmured. “This is actually much harder than I thought it would be. And I knew it would be absolutely dreadful.”

He was even more convinced now that he could not go on like this for very long. He had considered hurrying things along. It would be easily done with all the chemicals he still had on hand. John would not blame him.

At the moment, however, there were still some things he had to take care of, so there was a reason to go on. Most importantly, the publisher wanted him to write introductions to new editions of each of John’s books about their cases and lives. Sherlock wanted to do that very much, as his own private tribute to John. First thing in the morning he would begin.

The loneliness, though. He did not know how long he could deal with that. 

“All right, John,” he said at last. “I’m going to bed.”

But before he took his eyes from the sky, he was surprised to see a shooting star flash across the night.

Sherlock felt a genuine smile cross his face for the first time since the day John died. “Thank you, love,” he whispered.

He was still smiling, thinking about that shooting star, as he undressed and crawled into a bed that was much too large now. Trust John to do something like that for him. Oh, now, that was such a ridiculous thought that he was a bit embarrassed by it. Maybe he was completely senile and just didn’t know it.

But a moment later he decided that it didn’t matter.

He wrapped himself in a blanket that still smelled of his husband and settled down to [probably not] sleep.

“Good night, John,” he said automatically.

There was no reply.

Sherlock closed his eyes and remembered.

My name is Jawn. Will you be my friend?  
Oh, the adventures we were going to have.  
Iraq or Afghanistan?  
That’s…amazing.  
You’re unattached, just like me. Good.  
I consider myself married to my work.  
You’re an idiot.  
It’s where two people who like each other go out and have fun.  
Sherlock, run!  
Nobody wants to see your supply of ridiculously tight-fitting and sumptuous silk shirts reduced.  
There’s no place else I want to be.  
Worst comes to worst, we’ll go together okay?  
I always hear “hit me” when you talk, but it’s usually subtext.  
I don’t have friends. I only have one.  
I cannot help imagining a different world, one where I could share my love, my life, my everything, with you.  
Nobody could be that clever.  
You could.  
Don’t forget me. I will come home.  
You can explain and I will get angry and you will apologise and I will forgive you.  
Six months ago a dead man came back into your life. Remarkably, you did not turn him away.  
You saved me. No. I saved myself.  
John, I think we should get married.  
We will marry one another and it will be fine.  
You’ve broken my heart, Sherlock.  
TEN RULES FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE  
Poor Hamish loves the foolish knight to a ridiculous degree.  
I was happy keeping you in my heart and fighting so hard to return so that I could finally tell you how much I loved you.  
If you die, I will as well.  
When I die, I would like it to be with your lips on mine.

As he had known would be the case, Sherlock did not sleep at all. Instead, he just remembered. He lay in the dark and thought about the past, about John, realising as he did so that this was how he would be spending the rest of his days. There would not be so very many of those days, he knew, and that one fact made him smile.

He pressed his face into the blanket and inhaled the scent of John, holding it inside for as long as he could.

So was this how a man of science, a man of logic, a man who worshipped knowledge and puzzles above all else, waited for the end of his life? Sentimentalising a chunk of flaming rock as it fell through space? Unwrapping even the most ordinary of memories as if they were precious gifts? Waiting to be reunited with his best friend in some unlikely afterlife, where he would once again make music with the Stradivarius and John would listen?

Sherlock Holmes chuckled. Well, yes, apparently this was how such a man finished his days. At least it was if he were very, very lucky.

*  
The love that moves the  
sun and the other stars.

-Dante

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> If I am lucky enough that some of you have not tired of my Sherlock and John ramblings, you might like to know that tomorrow [baring an astroid falling on me or a Cumberbatch showing up to ask me to run off to, well, anywhere with him] I will begin posting another story. [Let's be honest: a Cumberbatch or a Freeman. Possibly both? Or is that being greedy?] I hope you will read and enjoy The Empty Spaces Between The Stars starting tomorrow.


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